Tonight, when we got home from a drive, I opened the car door to guide Linus out and into the house, but he slipped passed me and went running. This happens on occasion, and it's never a time when I feel like I can handle it emotionally. It never happens when I can laugh it off and say, "What a jerk. He'll come back." Of course he always runs past the house in which that old lady that stuck her tongue out at me lives. She stuck her tongue out at me once when I stuck my tongue out at her yappy dogs on the porch. It's a long amazing story that I'll tell you sometime, if you're nice. He runs past her house and riles up her dogs. Which means there's a chance she'll come out and yell at me for being a delinquent or something.
When I could get close enough to him, I'd call for him to come, and he'd stop briefly, size me up, then dash away from me. When I say I can't handle it emotionally, I mean, I take it personally. I admit it. I do this. I pile on all the reasons that he has to want to run away (I've been sick and not taking him out for long enough walks, I don't have enough toys for him, he doesn't get to play with his friends every day, he doesn't get to run free as much as he wants, he hates his food, etc.), and eventually I get a little stifled by it all. AND I cried. Like a little kid whose dog has run away and she doesn't understand why, except I felt like I knew exactly why, and it had more to do with me than the fact that HE'S A PUPPY and LIKES TO RUN.
This is what I do in almost every situation in life. There. I admit it. I am ridiculous. I take everything personally (to an extent). I'm a little better about it than I used to be, but I still have my glorious moments of ridiculosity. I can't help feeling that the world's ailing might be slightly my fault. Where, in the name of all that is holy, does this NONSENSE come from? Is it religion? Is it childhood trauma? I can't figure it out. The only thing I can do is maintain a calm dialog with myself when it starts to overtake me. Yep. I talk to myself, slowly and methodically explaining that my immediate thoughts are not necessarily rational, or based in reality. I think the thing we need to focus on here is the fact that I'm aware of this. That I figure it out.
Here's where I'm going with this. A friend of mine recently described a fight she had with her partner in which her partner was making a horribly irrational argument and she was fighting back...until she realized how irrational the argument was. Once that happened, she simply said, "you're right," and left her partner, who eventually came around and apologized, alone to suss it out. I have never found someone that would do that with me. I have never found someone that would recognize my irrational thoughts as irrational, disarm, and leave me alone to come around. Because I ALWAYS come around. I'm actually pretty sharp. Despite evidence against the fact. It's true. I'm a smart kid.
A neighbor eventually helped me trick him into coming home, and he pouted, of course, which made me even more sad. But I sat down on the couch, ate my pizza and watched my movie, and, eventually, he jumped up and plopped down next to me, half in my lap. So, I gave him some pizza, which is probably all he really wanted. Whatdya gonna do? He's a dog, for cryin' out loud. And he freakin' needs me.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
This Blog Sponsored by Nyquil Cough
Oh jeebus. I've been sick since Tuesday. It is not something I like. I am currently trying to stay awake under the influence of night time cough medicine. Hopefully, when I do go to sleep, I will be able to stay that way because my coughs will be suppressed.
I'm actually writing to let you in on something. I don't know if it's the fact that I've been watching a lot of Heroes and am inclined to think that I have a special power, or if I actually might have quite a powerful subconscious. In any case, I've been having incredibly poignant dreams lately. Maybe poignant isn't the right word. My dreams have been surprising me. Earlier this week, when I was staying at my friend's house during the snowpocalypse, I dreamed that she got locked in the back yard with the dogs while trying to feed them in the morning, and I found her there (in the dream) after I woke up, after she had spent a good deal of time yelling and screaming for someone to let her inside. Well, it turns out, that at right about the time I was dreaming this (I know because I woke up and then went back to sleep and dreamed it during the second sleep), she had fallen down the stairs that lead to the backyard while feeding the dogs. This may not seem like much to you, but it weirds me out.
THEN, a couple of nights ago, I dreamed I was playing in band again, and the director handed out a piece of music that was in one of those crazy keys that you hate to play in with, like, a million sharps. The next day, I walked into my classroom for theatre appreciation, and there was a bar of music on the board with a million or so sharps.
Okay. Writing it makes it seem kind of lame. It's much more heroic and important when it's my own personal achievement (dreaming such things on my own). Then I dreamed my dream last night...
I had been writing to a...guy, and he had asked if he could come to see me, to stay with me, live with me (we had developed this history long before the dream began) and I said okay. He was not a guy that I have ever met in waking life, but I recognized his face somehow. He moved in, and he immediately began spending time with another woman. She was not a woman that I had ever met in waking life, but I knew her somehow in the dream. I think she was some woman from a tv show, but not wholly. They began to treat me with disdain, to mock me, even, for allowing them to continue in their relationship when it was so clearly against and in spite of my own relationship with the guy. I remember in the dream, the woman kept trying to get my attention, while in my house by repeatedly calling me "miss? oh miss?" It was condescending, and it hurt. I remember being deep in my head, being silent, until finally, while she was giggling and trying to get me to look up, I raised my head, and I said calmly and firmly, "You have to leave. You both have to leave now." The guy was confused, maybe played hurt a little, and definitely apologized profusely on his way out the door, but I shook my head while maintaining eye contact. I remember going to my car as they were leaving, and pulling out a large bouquet of flowers from the front seat. "Where did those come from?" This nameless guy asked, and I replied, "It doesn't matter. They're for me."
Then, in the dream, I remembered. I had bought them for myself.
I'm actually writing to let you in on something. I don't know if it's the fact that I've been watching a lot of Heroes and am inclined to think that I have a special power, or if I actually might have quite a powerful subconscious. In any case, I've been having incredibly poignant dreams lately. Maybe poignant isn't the right word. My dreams have been surprising me. Earlier this week, when I was staying at my friend's house during the snowpocalypse, I dreamed that she got locked in the back yard with the dogs while trying to feed them in the morning, and I found her there (in the dream) after I woke up, after she had spent a good deal of time yelling and screaming for someone to let her inside. Well, it turns out, that at right about the time I was dreaming this (I know because I woke up and then went back to sleep and dreamed it during the second sleep), she had fallen down the stairs that lead to the backyard while feeding the dogs. This may not seem like much to you, but it weirds me out.
THEN, a couple of nights ago, I dreamed I was playing in band again, and the director handed out a piece of music that was in one of those crazy keys that you hate to play in with, like, a million sharps. The next day, I walked into my classroom for theatre appreciation, and there was a bar of music on the board with a million or so sharps.
Okay. Writing it makes it seem kind of lame. It's much more heroic and important when it's my own personal achievement (dreaming such things on my own). Then I dreamed my dream last night...
I had been writing to a...guy, and he had asked if he could come to see me, to stay with me, live with me (we had developed this history long before the dream began) and I said okay. He was not a guy that I have ever met in waking life, but I recognized his face somehow. He moved in, and he immediately began spending time with another woman. She was not a woman that I had ever met in waking life, but I knew her somehow in the dream. I think she was some woman from a tv show, but not wholly. They began to treat me with disdain, to mock me, even, for allowing them to continue in their relationship when it was so clearly against and in spite of my own relationship with the guy. I remember in the dream, the woman kept trying to get my attention, while in my house by repeatedly calling me "miss? oh miss?" It was condescending, and it hurt. I remember being deep in my head, being silent, until finally, while she was giggling and trying to get me to look up, I raised my head, and I said calmly and firmly, "You have to leave. You both have to leave now." The guy was confused, maybe played hurt a little, and definitely apologized profusely on his way out the door, but I shook my head while maintaining eye contact. I remember going to my car as they were leaving, and pulling out a large bouquet of flowers from the front seat. "Where did those come from?" This nameless guy asked, and I replied, "It doesn't matter. They're for me."
Then, in the dream, I remembered. I had bought them for myself.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Heroes
A friend of mine loaned me her copy of the first season of Heroes because I have never seen it. Now, I'm hooked. And just when I was beginning to think I had caught up on the all the television that I could possibly ever want to spend hours at a time watching. BLAST.
I've been struggling with a little lapse into depression that often snags me in the winter months. I've been spending a lot of time in my head. Not sure if that's the best place to be, but it's definitely forced me to listen a lot more. People will tell me the most interesting things if they feel that I'm really listening. And THAT, my friends, is between people and me.
Tonight, I accomplished the daunting task of thoroughly brushing and flossing my teeth. Sometimes I feel that I have to muster up the strength of a super hero to complete certain daily tasks...or tasks that should be daily, but are usually not, for me. So, tonight I mustered up the courage and the super-human strength to clean the inside of my mouth. It required a lot of staring myself down in the mirror over the sink, and a bit of out loud commentary...and some commentary in my head, while my mouth was unable to talk through the rinse, or the floss. I cleaned the living daylights out of my teeth and gums. It was no small task. But I met the hell out of it, and I usually do...at least once a month. I mean, I brush my teeth twice every day, but I don't always floss, even though I KNOW I should. How long does it take before something becomes a habit?
The snow days this week have been surreal. They were needed (after an arduous three days of classes), but they were surreal. I spent the first two at a friend's house in the woods. Each day, we took the dogs out for a long walk in the forest, and to the neighbor's land to check on their home. It's hard walking in 7 inches of snow. It's exhausting. We would walk out of her driveway and back up her neighbor's impossibly long drive to their home. The woods in the snow are eerily haunting enough, but this house was something else. It was a log cabin. Beautiful polished wood, so light that it almost looked gray, unpainted, and the roof was red. It was obvious that no one was home. I could feel it whenever the house came in view. There was a stillness. Everything around the house was quiet, pausing. I have no memory of the sound of our footsteps in the snow, or the dogs trudging around and ahead of us. Just silence. Stillness. Solitude. I wanted to touch part of the house, to lean against one of the red doors and listen to the silence inside. There was something being said in the peace of that clearing, and I wanted to hear it.
But we kept walking. As we so often do.
The snow is melting. Linus is getting a little annoyed by it too. The top layer is ice, and walking through it is more of a challenge than actually trying not to fall down. He doesn't like the breaking of the ice beneath his paws. He also doesn't like having to walk around in it to find a place to relieve himself. He looks at me, and I shrug my shoulders. What else can I do?
May I recommend an oatmeal bath to you for these cold cold winter nights? So soothing.
I've been struggling with a little lapse into depression that often snags me in the winter months. I've been spending a lot of time in my head. Not sure if that's the best place to be, but it's definitely forced me to listen a lot more. People will tell me the most interesting things if they feel that I'm really listening. And THAT, my friends, is between people and me.
Tonight, I accomplished the daunting task of thoroughly brushing and flossing my teeth. Sometimes I feel that I have to muster up the strength of a super hero to complete certain daily tasks...or tasks that should be daily, but are usually not, for me. So, tonight I mustered up the courage and the super-human strength to clean the inside of my mouth. It required a lot of staring myself down in the mirror over the sink, and a bit of out loud commentary...and some commentary in my head, while my mouth was unable to talk through the rinse, or the floss. I cleaned the living daylights out of my teeth and gums. It was no small task. But I met the hell out of it, and I usually do...at least once a month. I mean, I brush my teeth twice every day, but I don't always floss, even though I KNOW I should. How long does it take before something becomes a habit?
The snow days this week have been surreal. They were needed (after an arduous three days of classes), but they were surreal. I spent the first two at a friend's house in the woods. Each day, we took the dogs out for a long walk in the forest, and to the neighbor's land to check on their home. It's hard walking in 7 inches of snow. It's exhausting. We would walk out of her driveway and back up her neighbor's impossibly long drive to their home. The woods in the snow are eerily haunting enough, but this house was something else. It was a log cabin. Beautiful polished wood, so light that it almost looked gray, unpainted, and the roof was red. It was obvious that no one was home. I could feel it whenever the house came in view. There was a stillness. Everything around the house was quiet, pausing. I have no memory of the sound of our footsteps in the snow, or the dogs trudging around and ahead of us. Just silence. Stillness. Solitude. I wanted to touch part of the house, to lean against one of the red doors and listen to the silence inside. There was something being said in the peace of that clearing, and I wanted to hear it.
But we kept walking. As we so often do.
The snow is melting. Linus is getting a little annoyed by it too. The top layer is ice, and walking through it is more of a challenge than actually trying not to fall down. He doesn't like the breaking of the ice beneath his paws. He also doesn't like having to walk around in it to find a place to relieve himself. He looks at me, and I shrug my shoulders. What else can I do?
May I recommend an oatmeal bath to you for these cold cold winter nights? So soothing.
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